Here's one for the "Truth is Stranger than Fiction" Hall of Fame.
The point at which US corporations began to enjoy rights originally intended by the Founders only for citizens is generally identified as the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Supreme Court case. What most agree is a "passing reference" (aka obiter dictum in lawyer-speak) entitling corporations with Fourteenth Amendment Rights is at times attributed to Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite.
But Waite ---
It turns out that it wasn't any Supreme Court Justice who granted citizens rights to what had been, at the time, a much simpler charter authorized by each state.
A Court Reporter Gave Citizens' Rights to Corporations
The remark attributed to the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case was not part of the court's formal opinion. Instead, it appears only in a summary of the case written by Court Reporter J. C. Bancroft Davis, in official United States Reports publication of Supreme Court decisions.
Ah, me.
At this point, feel free to Wiki, Google, Bing away at this topic. Did Waite verbally mention the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection as applying in the case during the hearings? Perhaps, but in a somewhat vague correspondence between Waite and Davis, Waite appears to be saying, consider that we justices chose to avoid addressing that constitutional issue (14th Amendment rights applying to corporations) in our Opinion; take your queue from that in deciding whether or not to cite it in the report. The report was printed with the fateful statement made by Davis, a former president of two railroads (see? you can't make it up!), in the headnote. We've been living with the consequences ever since.
Where do we Go from Here?
The tide of accumulated citizens rights that have been awarded to corporations since then has ebbed and flowed. Corporations have been gaining rights in recent decades, adding First Amendment rights even before today's decision.
Now, I happen to think that the money in politics is one of the most important issues in the country. Even before this ruling, the current loopholed campaign finance system separates electability so far from the needs of citizens that the Congress' legislation and actions in huge matters such as war, banking regulations and healthcare are cartoonish at best, and highly destructive to our national interest at worst.
This week's ruling plunges the inefficiency of Congress right into Fester City.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Welcome to the Blog, and a Word about VMware News
Today is the launch of the Mark-Sense blog. I hadn't planned to post more than a welcome, but interesting news bids me write on...
Today we learn that Diane Green has been ousted from VMware. As an admirer of VMware's performance, products and corporate culture, I wonder if this turn of events will have the impact many of us thought EMC's 2003 purchase may have had, but has so far been avoided.
Let's take a look at what Ms. Green has accomplished to date. VMware could have easily run aground years back had the company not gone out of its way to ensure a strong product quality profile. When virtualization is all you provide, and customer applications depend on your product's stability, there are no second and third chances, as Microsoft has enjoyed with its virtualization line.
While not exactly an Apple, VMware does share some qualities with the venerable silicon valley icon. They’ve exhibited strong product vision, delivered products that are intuitive to use and simpler than one expects, and cultivated a field organization focused on technical competence and the kind of integrity that makes for repeat customers.
The business results, of course, have been phenominal, with VMware typically cited as one of the fastest growing software companies ever, and enjoying business performance leadership within the technology industry as a whole.
Brava to Diane for one of the truly notable industry performances of the decade! I’ll miss her leadership of the firm, and as others have suggested, expect her to do well, wherever she takes on next.
As for the company's prospects, if Green replacement Paul Maritz has a solid sense of what brought the firm to this point, VMware should continue to do well, despite recent adjusted growth guidance and stock fluctuations. (After all, they were targeting 50% growth, and these are rough economic times…) I'll eat these words if I must, but I wouldn't be surprised if VMware ends up meeting its original targets when the year comes to an end... In any case, Paul has lead a small, visionary firm for a number of years himself, and time will tell if he's able to preserve what's made VMware so attractive to customers and investors over the years.
As a cautionary tale, consider the way in which HP fared in the Compaq merger. However well they’ve done longer-term, and in certain areas such as servers, for example, they should be congratulated, there’s no doubt that HP's corporate growth potential was hampered by aspects of the merger deal. Leadership and clashing culture played a key role, as some legacy HP assets went unappreciated including enterprise-level computing expertise in the field and successful product teams, while other assets were starved for savvy decision-making, such as the post-merger mid-range storage product line.
VMware has almost singlehandedly set the asset utilization, service level delivery and increasingly, operational efficiency standards for 21st Century computing environments. It’d be a boon to IT departments everywhere if EMC can keep what happened to HP from happening to VMware in the wake of Diane’s ouster.
Today we learn that Diane Green has been ousted from VMware. As an admirer of VMware's performance, products and corporate culture, I wonder if this turn of events will have the impact many of us thought EMC's 2003 purchase may have had, but has so far been avoided.
Let's take a look at what Ms. Green has accomplished to date. VMware could have easily run aground years back had the company not gone out of its way to ensure a strong product quality profile. When virtualization is all you provide, and customer applications depend on your product's stability, there are no second and third chances, as Microsoft has enjoyed with its virtualization line.
While not exactly an Apple, VMware does share some qualities with the venerable silicon valley icon. They’ve exhibited strong product vision, delivered products that are intuitive to use and simpler than one expects, and cultivated a field organization focused on technical competence and the kind of integrity that makes for repeat customers.
The business results, of course, have been phenominal, with VMware typically cited as one of the fastest growing software companies ever, and enjoying business performance leadership within the technology industry as a whole.
Brava to Diane for one of the truly notable industry performances of the decade! I’ll miss her leadership of the firm, and as others have suggested, expect her to do well, wherever she takes on next.
As for the company's prospects, if Green replacement Paul Maritz has a solid sense of what brought the firm to this point, VMware should continue to do well, despite recent adjusted growth guidance and stock fluctuations. (After all, they were targeting 50% growth, and these are rough economic times…) I'll eat these words if I must, but I wouldn't be surprised if VMware ends up meeting its original targets when the year comes to an end... In any case, Paul has lead a small, visionary firm for a number of years himself, and time will tell if he's able to preserve what's made VMware so attractive to customers and investors over the years.
As a cautionary tale, consider the way in which HP fared in the Compaq merger. However well they’ve done longer-term, and in certain areas such as servers, for example, they should be congratulated, there’s no doubt that HP's corporate growth potential was hampered by aspects of the merger deal. Leadership and clashing culture played a key role, as some legacy HP assets went unappreciated including enterprise-level computing expertise in the field and successful product teams, while other assets were starved for savvy decision-making, such as the post-merger mid-range storage product line.
VMware has almost singlehandedly set the asset utilization, service level delivery and increasingly, operational efficiency standards for 21st Century computing environments. It’d be a boon to IT departments everywhere if EMC can keep what happened to HP from happening to VMware in the wake of Diane’s ouster.
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